Ok, summary:

The double charged me, I dispute 1 (ONE) of the charges with my bank, they disable my account and email me to drop the dispute, I provide proof of the double charge (which was not authorized OR credited to my global poker account), they ban me permanently.

Just be warned.

Here is the short exchange between us:

Original email from GP:

"Hello Brandon,

We are writing in regards to your account.

Our system has notified us of a disputed transaction from your side in relation to Gold Coins purchase(s) made with .

In order to protect your account's integrity, it has now been blocked.

We would appreciate it if you would email us back to discuss the specific transactions you feel were unauthorised so we can resolve this issue with you. Please include as much information about the transactions you reported as unauthorised including dates, times, amounts, and any reference numbers or transaction numbers you have so we can clarify any confusion around the transactions in question. Please note that all purchases of Gold Coins on our site will display as "GP GOLD COINS" on your statement, so this may be a reason for you not recognizing the transaction.

We hope that we can resolve this issue with you and that you will contact your payment provider, along with your bank/card issuer and close the dispute cases you've filed with them. If you continue with the dispute process we will respond to your bank/card issuer accordingly but please understand this will result in you being permanently banned from our site.

Kind regards,

The Support Team"

My first response:

"Sure, it's easy. You double charged me on august 7th for 100 dollars. I
can't log in any longer, since you locked my account for some silly
reason, so I don't know what "transaction ID" or anything like that. The
second charge wasn't authorized, nor was it credited to my account on
global poker (1 was, but not 2). See the screen capture from my card
ending in 3716 used to make the transaction.

Also, you should re consider the passive aggressive tone of your email
to me, suggesting that somehow I have made the error or, worse yet,
intentionally reversed a charge. Not only is it *garbage *customer
service, you are going to *tick *people off who have legitimate issues -
like me.

I hope that you can resolve this issue with me and that you will
contact your payment department, along with your supervisors and credit
processors and fix this issue on your end and allow my dispute to hold.
If you continue pressing this issue, especially since you didn't
actually provide anything for the second 100 dollar transaction you
stole from me, I will respond to your payment processors and several
poker forums regarding this situation accordingly, but pleas understand
this will never be your extra 100.00 dollars and should this issue
persist, I will not only never deposit on your site again, but do my
best to make sure everyone knows you double charge customers, then claim
they are stealing.

Kind regards,

Me."

(This included the screenshot of the bank account with the double charges posted LAST MONTH. Yeah, it also kind of pissed me off they lead out with "drop this dispute or we will ban you". That kind of garbage is the bottom of the barrel as far as customer service goes, so I responded in kind. Tounge in cheek, of course, but I think this is the real reason "Marshall" banned me")

Their last response:

"Hi Brandon,

Thank you for your email.

We would like to inform you that your account is now permanently blocked since a disputed purchase on your account was already confirmed.

This decision has been decided by our management and is non-negotiable.

In the event that you attempt to create another account and play, we will suspend your new account upon our earliest discovery and any funds therein will be forfeited.

Please let us know if there is anything else we can help you with.

All the best,
Marshall"

No real loss for me, except that they are unwilling to recognize and/or fix THEIR mistake.

How credit card "charges" work.

First they are "authorized." The "Authorization" is not a "charge." Sometimes if you make an attempt and it doesn't go through you will see the original "authorization" on your card. This can remain on your card for anywhere from a few hours to 10 business days depending on the type of card.

As long as it is an "authorization" it is not a "charge." A "charge" is a completed transaction that has posted. It usually takes a few business days for a transaction to "post" so you could not have just been charged twice.


Usually banks will not put holds on transactions or accounts until the transaction has "posted." If they did it blocks any transactions so that is what you did, you blocked both charges and got the banhammer.

Thanks for the explanation, but it wasn't needed. This was not news to me and i'm well aware of how charges work.

As I said I was double charged. BOTH charges posted to my account and it wasn't until I submitted a dispute AFTER they POSTED, that one of them was credited back to my card.

At no point did I authorize 2 charges and I was only credited for ONE of them on my global poker account.

It is always best to contact the merchant first. By you disputing, they are automatically hit with fees from their card processing account.

In my business I have a zero tolerance for disputes. I have customers who dispute transactions because they decide they didn't like it. For a $15 sale, I would rather issue them a full refund... Instead, I lose $15, my shipping expense, the item, plus $40 fee from my card processor. I will not take orders from the person again.

We're not talking about a refund or the fact that I was trying to con them out of money. Try to dilute the issue all you want, but the fact is they made a mistake and failed to resolve it.

They DOUBLE CHARGED me and I disputed only the duplicate charge. Hell, my bank was the one that brought my attention to it and suggested I dispute it. The fact that I "should have" contacted them first is moot. This is the cost of doing business and I have no business with one that isn't willing to own its mistake.

And, as far as customer service is concerned, there are plenty of legitimate reasons for a dispute. I get that people use it as a way to try and steal goods or services, but that does not, in any way, make it true for everyone.

They banned me, that's their prerogative, but I'll take it out of them by smearing this BS wherever I can. The fact is, what they did was not right and i'm posting this as a warning.

Of course there are reasons for you to dispute the transaction... However you should contact the merchant first, if they are unwilling to work with you that is when you dispute a charge.

Well, as it turns out they wouldn't issue a credit to my account anyway and would only deposit the "coins" into my Global Poker account for a charge that wasn't even supposed to happen. I've had several people confirm this. As a poker player in this day and age, that should raise some eyebrows by itself.

As a business owner it baffles me that you defend their response to this regardless of whether I disputed or contacted them first. They should never have put me in that situation.

That's like someone giving you 20 dollars when they owe only 10 and you giving them a gift card as change and telling them they aren't allowed to come back if they don't like it. LOL

I agree that is not the way they should do it (crediting your gold coin account rather than the transaction). At the same time, you can play through deposits pretty quickly and then cash out...

Did your bank get your money back? Any hate mail from global?

You being a business owner I’m surprised you can’t relate to errors occurring and handled it in a more professional matter. Instead it appears you chose writing an email in a condescending passive aggressive manner as opposed to discussing facts instead of sounding like an entitled snowflake.

I would of banned you just for that. Hooray for Global.

I had the exact same thing happen to me, Global support is **** when dealing with double charges. It took a few weeks and a ton of emails trying to get it solved with Global Support to no avail. Luckily Kimberly was able to solve the issue for me through a private message on 2+2, I'd recommend you do the same.